Ofcom

UK communications regulator Ofcom has today announced more radio spectrum will be available at auction for mobile operators next year (or early 2016). The two bands that will be up for grabs are the 2.3GHz and 3.4GHz frequencies that will offer high data capacity for the increasing use of mobile connectivity.

Ofcom, the British communications industry regulator, has announced that finally mobile networks will have to cease charging for calls to freephone 0800 numbers. Or rather, from 2015 they will. In addition, changes will be made to charges for calling numbers used by companies and organisations that start with 08, 09 and 118.

Ofcom has announced the winners of the UK 4G LTE spectrum auction and it hopes that all winner s will start rolling out LTE in the UK within six months; which is fantastic news for our UK readers. The auction raised around 2.34 billion pounds which is over a billion pound less than it expected. The winners were the expected major networks already present in the UK, namely Vodafone, Everything Everywhere, Hutchison 3G UK, Telefonica, and Vodafone. Niche Spectrum Ventures Ltd which is a subsidiary of BT Group PLC also picked up the smallest share of the spectrum.

Ofcom has made good on its plans to push forward the auction for the UK’s 4G mobile spectrum auction. Applications will start in December this year and the roll out to consumers is expected to be no later than May / June 2013. Everything Everywhere already has its 4G LTE network rolling out across the UK so this will be a huge relief to the other UK networks.

The UK government has announced that the mobile networks in the UK have buried their differences and agreed a new timetable for the roll out of LTE. The agreements were made at a meeting yesterday involving Ofcom and the rival mobile networks. It was agreed that all of their differences would be settled and the one aim would be to get the roll out of LTE expedited with a target now of Spring 2013

There has been a lot of talk over how the iPhone 5 will be a major upgrade from the current iPhone 4S. Consistent rumors point to not only a taller screen but most importantly an LTE radio. What is LTE and why does it matter? LTE in very basic terms is a mobile data technology that offers very fast data. Imagine if you will, downloading data onto your iPhone at a something like 50Mbit/s in real world situations and you’re getting the gist